Course Syllabus - GIS for International Crises, Development and the Environment

CRN: 2189 | NINT 5380 | Fall 2022

New School for Public Engagement: International Affairs | Faculty: Stephen Metts | Email

Imgur Source: https://atlas.developmentseed.org/all/ | Connectivity Atlas

Lecture:

Monday (08/29/2022 - 12/18/2022)
8:00pm - 9:50pm
6 East 16th Street - Room 701

Course Description:

Through weekly lectures, guided lab sessions, independent research, and a culminating final project, students will gain a working knowledge Geographic information Systems (GIS) and cartographic strategies increasingly vital to humanitarian relief, international development and climate challenges. As contemporary GIS software constitutes a predominant mapping platform across many disciplines and industries, students will gain a foothold in the practical application of this valuable software, as well as an understanding of how GIS relates to a myriad of global development issues. Further, students will develop proven skills in cartography, spatial data manipulation and analysis.

Lecture sessions will introduce students to the history, theory and capabilities of GIS in an international development and evironmental context; corresponding weekly lab sessions will guide students towards mastery of GIS skills. Each week students will work independently to complete technical assignments which draw upon spatial concepts introduced and detailed in a lecture setting. In the latter portion of the course, students will segue towards developing their own GIS project for a particular research topic in international development, humanitarian relief or environmental studies. Through the final project, students will demonstrate their mastery and integration of course concepts through the practical and technical application of GIS technology.

In the syllabus schedule to follow, each week is typically divided into a Lecture and Lab component. Students are encouraged to use the posted lab materials as supplemental materials to each week’s assignment. Typically the lab component will feature extended workflow instructions to accomplish GIS tasks related to the weekly topic. Like lecture materials, these weekly labs will be made available for access throughout the course. They can prove useful for student enrichment beyond the weekly assignments; they can also be helpful in demonstrating different approaches to spatial problems introduced each week throughout the course. Generally the weekly lab materials are optional and they are not graded.

Course Themes:

‘Spatial’ thinking
Fundamentals of Desktop GIS
Cartographic strategies for effective public dissemination
Spatial analysis
GIS Suitability
Location technologies
Mapping vulnerability-exposure, vulnerability, and risk modeling for decision support
Crisis mapping, Participatory GIS, crowdsourcing and volunteered geographic information (vgi)
Remote sensing, indices & satellite sensor fundamentals

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the semester, successful students will:

Demonstrate fundamental ‘spatial’ thinking skills to leverage data typical of disaster, humanitarian and international development contexts.
Demonstrate a solid, working knowledge of GIS through all graded outcomes of course.
Articulate and develop research and data collection strategies around an unique research topic in disaster management, climate change and the environment, vulnerable communities, global migration and refugees or international development topics.
Articulate their own understanding of research data and GIS processes through a final course GIS project.
Participate effectively in class discussions, as well as conduct independent research and successfully master weekly GIS assignments.
Demonstrate their ability to translate and migrate GIS data to other spatial technologies in both desktop and online environments.
Develop their own GIS project with sufficient complexity, reflecting their mastery of GIS as it relates to their own research topic.
Gain the ability to apply concepts and skills learned through course to future work in disaster management, humanitarian relief, environmental studies or international development.

Course Theory Text - Required (required for purchase):

Michael Shin, Jonathan Campbell, and Nick Burkhart. (2017). Essentials of Geographic Information Systems, V 2.1. ISBN: 978-1-4533-9081-8

Course Technical Texts - Recommendations (not required for purchase):

Menke, K. (2019). Discover QGIS 3.x: A Workbook for Classroom or Independent Study. ISBN-978-0998547763
Madry, S. (2021). Introduction to QGIS: Open Source Geographic Information System. ISBN-978-1734464306

Note: any reading materials outside the required course theory textbook will be provided to students on a weekly basis.

Course Case Studies & Cartographic Examples (not required for purchase):

Ian Goldin , Robert Muggah (2020). Terra Incognita: 100 Maps to Survive the Next 100 Years. ISBN: 9781529124194

Course Outline:

Class 1 | QGIS Installation and Orientation

Lecture:

An introduction to Cartography, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Spatial Technology

Lab:

No Lab Week 1, Class 1

Assignment:

Installation and core interface components within QGIS.

Class 2 | Latitude & Longitude

Lecture:

Introduction to Vector Model, Latitude & Longitude
Geographic Coordinate System (GCS)
Spatial vs. Nonspatial data

Lab:

Developing & mapping Lat/Lon points - Geographic Coordinate System (GCS)
Working with .csv, .shp & geojson.io & .shp

Assignment:

Acquiring, cleaning and mapping data as Lat/Lon points features.

Class 3 | Cartographic Principles & Intro to Symbolization

Lecture:

Cartographic design & conventions

Lab:

Symbolization with QGIS

Assignment:

Points features & symbolization strategies

Class 4 | Thematic Mapping

Lecture:

Thematic Mapping
Data types & sources
Demographic Data & Maps
Choropleth mapping

Lab:

Displaying Data via Classification Schemes
Histograms
Spatial & Table Joins
Selections by Attributes vs Selections by Location
Cartographic thematic design
Choropleth Mapping

Assignment:

Thematic maps for US Census Datasets

Class 5 | Introduction to the Raster Data

Lecture:

Introduction to Raster Data

Lab:

Raster data types, manipulation and output

Assignment:

Mapping with Raster data

Class 6 | Map Projections

Lecture:

Map projections
Coordinate systems
Geodetic datums

Lab:

Managing & transforming projections & coordinate systems in QGIS

Assignment:

Mapping in the UTM system; advantages of planar units in GIS
Solving common map projection problems

Class 7 | Geoprocessing

Lecture:

Introduction to Geoprocessing

Lab:

Geoprocessing tools
Feature proximity, overlay & extraction operations
Classifying spatial data via spatial operations

Assignment:

Analysis Case Study- Kosovo landmines and unexploded ordnance

Class 8 | Mapping Vulnerability

Lecture:

Mapping vulnerability model

Lab:

Mapping and assessing risk & vulnerable populations - National Tornado Vulnerability

Assignment:

Vulnerability Mapping - thematic topic TBD

Class 9 | Suitability Analysis

Lecture:

Multi-criteria suitability analysis
Site selection

Lab:

Mapping and assessing suitability

Assignment:

Suitability Model for GIS - Ugandan Civil War & IDP Camp Suitability

Class 10 | Participatory GIS

Lecture:

Participatory GIS
Volunteered geographic information- VGI
Collaborative, online mapping platforms
OpenStreetMap (OSM)

Lab:

Collaborative web-based GIS tools
Feature editing in desktop & web-based environments

Assignment:

Developing VGI - Editing tools in OSM

Class 11 | Remote Sensing & Image Classification

Lecture:

Remote Sensing (RS) Technology and Raster Classification

Lab:

Displaying & manipulating multi-band rasters
Working with single-band, classified rasters
Land cover data
Categorical raster data manipulation
Introduction to global scale land cover products

Assignment:

Working with LandSat imagery
Classification techniques for RS imagery
Change over Time (temporal comparison) with RS imagery

Class 12 | Remote Sensing Indices, density surfaces & interpolation

Lecture:

Common environmental indices in RS

Lab:

Introduction to RS indices
Creating of density surfaces (heat maps)

Assignment:

RS Indices | RS Land Surface Temperature Assessment (LST)

Required & Recommended Reading - Weekly Quizzes:

Starting Class 2, there will be a short quiz that will open on the day of each lecture, i.e. Mondays 7am. The quiz is designed to cover technical terminology and readings assigned the previous week. The course readings will be selected each week from the required course text Essentials of Geographic Information Systems. Students are responsible to complete each week’s readings and be ready for the quiz at the start of each week (quizzes will stay open throughout the day each Monday, and conclude each Monday at 8pm). A quiz code will be provided on a weekly basis to access each quiz. This quiz code will be located on each week’s agenda that will be sent out each Sunday evening prior to the upcoming week.

Materials:

During each class session, reading materials, GIS files and your notes can be on your local computer; materials and course access will happen generally online via Canvas and Slack. For moving GIS files and research materials back and forth, a USB drive is ideal. Further, online storage such as Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon Cloud Drive is encouraged. Course lecture topics, readings and in-class exercise data will be available via the online course management location (Canvas); however, each student will be required to organize and maintain their own GIS data files, especially pertaining to the final project. These files should be consistently backed up across multiple locations.

Course Policies:

Email & Course assignments: Students are required to maintain and check their TNS email account on a regular basis, except over official breaks. There will be a Slack group established for the course; this will be the official channel for course communication, especially technical issues. For more personal/private issues, students can email instructor directly at the following address - email. The course management software (Canvas) should be utilized during the week to accomplish each week’s assignment. Students are required to check in via the online course site to gain needed course materials and submit completed assignments. Students should be working through class assignments early in the week to be certain they understand the technical challenges of each assignment; and finalize these assignments prior to assignment deadlines, usually midnight each consecutive Sunday. Students that practice and prepare early in the week can avoid the stress that comes with a looming assignment deadline late in the week.
Academic Honesty:
As part of the larger New School academic policy, plagiarism and cheating are unacceptable. Using other’s ideas, analysis and projects as one’s own is unacceptable. Being positively influenced by a methodology or past project is one thing; taking the details of that work and claiming them as your own is another. The university’s academic policy applies to both GIS projects and any theory and narrative responses that you will author throughout the course.
Adaptations: If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements, please bring it to my attention as soon as possible.
Attendance: Class attendance is mandatory. Students are expected to participate in each class session. Importantly, sequential coursework will be completed in a timely manner and uploaded by due dates per assignment/deliverable. As this course is sequential and depends heavily on weekly skills development to proceed to following weeks, any absences are consequential; and multiple absences quickly risk success in the course. If a students knows in advance of an absence, its critical to notify the faculty for arrangements. Approximately three absences will put a student at clear risk of a failing grade. It is your responsibility to make up work missed due to an absence. If you know in advance that you will miss a class you should notify faculty as a courtesy in advance. Your third absence will put you at risk of a failing grade in the course, as stated in the Student Handbook.
Courtesy: Make sure to log into Canvas reqularly, and be present for both the in-person lectures and online labs on time. Student should maintain ‘mute’ protocol during the synchronous sessions for the lab component, unless and until it is necessary to engage others on the Zoom session. Further, it is indeed helpful to have web cameras on to ensure optimum engagement during the lab sessions.

Evaluation and Grading:

Course Component	Percentage
Weekly GIS technical assignments	50%
Independent research, data development & project scope (Final Project)	10%
Final GIS project presentation (Final Project)	30%
Participation & weekly quizzes	10%
Total	100%

Grading Categories:

A Students receiving an “A” grade show exceptional mastery over course material, and produce exceptionally engaging and unique final GIS projects. Student excels in all aspects of the weekly assignments and participates very actively in class discussions and activities. Throughout the class, students receiving A’s will consistently accomplish each week’s goals while further establishing their own interests and approaches to particular technical and research data issues in both the weekly course content and final GIS project.
B/B+ Unlike C/C+ average work, students receiving a “B” grade show definitive engagement with all aspects of the class, complete assignments in a timely fashion, and produce an engaging final GIS project. Student offers own approach to class readings, and participates well with in-class exercises and activities. Students are engaged with instructor through questioning and feedback over course material to ensure course mastery.
C/C+ Average work that shows some success in engaging with course concepts but no particular distinction or unique approaches to data collection, research concepts and final presentation. Student shows some participation with class discussion and exercises, but not a significant interest level to achieve real mastery over course concepts and material.
F An “F” grade will be given if partial required work is submitted; some classes are missed completely and work is not completed on a make-up basis. Weekly exercises are either completed late or not at all. General class concepts are not translated into the final GIS project. Limited participation in both in-class sessions and out-of-class research requirements.
I A grade of I (Incomplete), signifying a temporary deferment of a regular grade, may be assigned when coursework has been delayed at the end of the semester for unavoidable and legitimate reasons. Incomplete grades are given only with the written approval of the instructor and the program director. The Request for an Incomplete Grade form must be filled out by the student and instructor prior to the end of the semester. This grade option is only available for very uncommon, unforeseeable complicating issues as outlined in the student handbook. For undergraduate students, if a grade of incomplete is approved, outstanding work must be submitted by the seventh week of the following semester. Otherwise, a grade of I will automatically convert to a permanent unofficial withdrawal (WF) after a period of four weeks. For graduate students, the maximum deadline for completion of an incomplete is one year, though a shorter period may be imposed at the discretion of the instructor.